Mass Effect Back from the brink: part one
by donamatter
Summary: This was a one shot i wrote after completing all the Mass effect games. I needed something to satisfy my needs so i wrote this in order to pass the time. Geth and Quarians were both saved and cured the genophage. All paragon, no renegade.


The alien structure centres itself around a rising blue beam. Shepard clenches his stomach and grits his teeth, trying to escape the pain. The choice stood in front of him, destroy or become. The war against the reapers had finally taken its toll on him; it was all on his shoulders.

"If I chose either of them I die?" asks Shepard.

The shimmering, semi-translucent boy like AI known as the Catalyst stands at Shepard's left looking at him in anticipation.

"Yes."

In his career Shepard had disobeyed regulation and moulded a relationship with fellow spectre Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams. To die now, without saying goodbye, it would ruin him and her.

"There is one other way."

Shepard snaps his head to the left and looks at the catalyst with hope and salvation.

"What is it?"

"Elect someone to take your place."

Shepard's expression soured and he returned to look at the rising blue beam, as it pulsed with power. The beam seemed seductive whispering to him like it was alive.

"I thought you said it could only be me."

"I said that you are the only organic to make it here and you would mark the change of the cycle, but you didn't make it here alone."

Shepard thinks of his crew: Ashley, Garrus, James, Liara, EDI, Joker and Traynor. All defining forces in the battle against the reapers; he was now faced with an impossibly difficult decision.

"Anyone in particular?" wonders Shepard.

"Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams."

Shepard almost dies from shock and his lungs clench, struggling for breath. It would be callous to put anyone let alone her up for this. Something in the back of his mind nags at him, _"Elect her."_

"Your remarkable, you could be the beacon of hope in a galaxy full of despair."

"I couldn't do that, she's too special."

"For you perhaps, she is expendable."

Shepard's anger flares and blends itself with his sadness.

"You're a machine, how could you understand."

"Feelings are a weakness, I have no weaknesses."

Shepard looks away from the translucent child and cradles his stomach in his hands with agony. His vision begins to blur and pain surges through his nervous system. A synthetic layer of leather like cables begins to grow on his neck. He falls to his knees and the vision of the prothean's destruction flashes in his head and pain shoots through his body once again. The whispers return and break the silence in his head.

"Shepard" says a deep, evil voice.

Shepard blinks and he appears in a black abyss. In front of him a flurry of crimson pulses ominously. Red lightning strikes around it making an electrical globe around the red energy cloud.

"Who…what are you."

"I am Harbinger."

Harbinger's evil, dark voice pierces Shepard's ear drums and his head throbs in pain. The whispers crawl closer and closer.

"Why are you in my head?"

"I have always been in your head, since the very beginning."

Shepard braves the pain for the moment and stands up on nothing but pure darkness. His thoughts become clouded by tethers of darkness and tendrils of black.

"What are you talking about?"

In the blink of an eye the pulsing red energy cloud turns into a long dead Kaiden Alenko.

"I have been the defining force in your decisions throughout this 'War' as you call it."

"What do you mean this war?"

"We have no interest in conflict, it is inevitable that you will all be harvested and consumed."

"But how…can you influence me, I would know if your there."

"Your understanding of us is minimal," "Lieutenant Alenko's death, the release of the Rachni queen, leaving the collector base intact, choosing the Geth over the Quarians." "I am your inevitability Shepard, your genetic superior."

Shepard frowns and the growth on his neck spreads across his chin and up the side of his face. He slumps to the ground again, gritting his teeth in pain.

"I managed to stop Sovereign," "at least I bought us sometime."

Shepard looks up to see a familiar face of Urdnot Wrex walking towards him.

"Sovereign was miscreant, it was hoping to stop the harvest, you stopped that from happening," "Under my influence."

"What, why did it tell me that it was going to begin the cycle on Virmire?" asks Shepard in pain.

"You would not have had the motivation to destroy it if it said it was going to save you, would you?"

"You played me" groans Shepard.

"It was necessary."

"It's weak, you couldn't do it yourself" rebuts Shepard.

"Is it any different from an organic employing a synthetic to do your work for you?"

The growth continues to consume Shepard's body, now more than half of his body was covered in the leathery synthetic cabling.

"You're just afraid of what we might become."

"Do I look scared?"

Harbinger grabs Shepard's chin and pulls his vision up to look at the face of the old Asari councillor with a stern look in her eyes. Shepard's head pulses with pain and his eyes burn like wild fire and blood begins to run from his nose.

"Your struggling only makes this more painful, just accept it."

"You're a just a giant over powered squid" struggles Shepard.

"Your blinded slights do not affect me."

Harbinger lets Shepard's head slump as more of the growth crawls up and around his mouth. The growth encompasses nearly all of Shepard's body, his thoughts are clouded and his ability to control himself is fading.  
The growth consumes his entire body and his vital organs slowly come to a halt. With one final blink he watches Harbinger's image form into him, a perfect replica of Shepard himself. The reflection suddenly catches alight ominously and disintegrates into ash.

The Catalyst stares at the crumpled body of Shepard and Williams sits at the body's side, praying for him to wake up.

"Come on Skipper, please wake up" she pleads.

"Lieutenant Commander, you must choose in place of Shepard."

"Wait!"

"If we wait any longer there will be nothing to wait for."

Williams sobs in the dead Shepard's neck when suddenly his eye lids open rapidly to reveal 3 circles connected by a larger circle in place of an iris. Williams doesn't pay attention and hugs him in glee.

"You alright?" she asks.

He places a hand on his head knowing that something had happened but he couldn't remember. He only notices the familiar whispers crawling around his head and his blurred memory.

"A giant headache, that's about it."

Williams helps Shepard up and the 2 of them turn to look at the blue beam shooting up in the air.

"Why isn't the Crucible firing!" cries Admiral Hackett over the fleet wide comm.

"Geth ships have just begun attacking Quarian live ships!" cries a voice in reply.

The comm channels go hay wire with reports of Geth and Rachni joining forces with the reapers and attacking the other races both in space and on Earth.

"What the hell is going on?"

Shepard looks at the Catalyst then to Ashley then back to the rising blue beam. He feels like he knows why but cannot quite remember what it is.

"You must make the decision Commander."

Shepard looks to the stout glass canister which would destroy all the reapers across the galaxy. His heart was telling him yes but his brain was telling him no. He then looks at the two nodes which would turn him into energy and give him control over the reapers; or he could nominate Ashley to make the choice. A voice in the back of his mind nags at him to take control of the reapers: _"Assume control"_ it echoes.

"I choose…" his mind switching between decisions when suddenly he sub-consciously says, "I will take control."

"What?" wonders Ashley, "Choose me, not you?"

Shepard hobbles forward holding his bleeding torso and up the sloped ramp leading to the control terminal. He is stopped only 2 metres from the console by Ashley turning him around.

"Please don't, I love you."

She pushes her lips against his and runs for the terminal hastily, aiming to get their before Shepard does.

"No!"

She plants her hands onto the nodes and the energy running through them begins to consume her life force. He moves to pull her away but his body freezes up and suddenly he loses all control over what he is doing. _"Direct intervention is necessary."_

"What's going on?"

With a rush of knowledge Shepard suddenly remembers what happened; Harbinger, the eventuality, all of it. His finger pulls the trigger and the slither of super-fast metal hits her right between the shoulder blades and she crumbles to the ground. Shepard runs to her side and runs her hair back over her ears. Her eyes are distant and her lips pale. The blood from her wound seeps into his hands and his mind breaks to pieces.

"Shepard" echoes the voice of Harbinger.

Shepard stands up and turns around to be returned to the black abyss once again with the red pulsing energy cloud in front of him.

"Is this your eventuality, me being torn apart?"

"No, this is merely one of many pieces to the puzzle."

Shepard looks at his hands to see the same synthetic skin covering it. Purple lights shine through the gaps and condensed cable replace his skin.

"What are you doing to me?"

"You will find out soon enough."

Shepard looks down and the silver metallic floor reappears with blue energy running through it. His hand was back to normal but the growth on his neck had spread up the right side of his face.

"You're under our control."

The pulsing pain returns again and Shepard holds his head in pain. His nose begins to bleed as his eyes burn in unquantifiable levels of pain. His mind begins to tear, the growth rapidly spreads across his body and he loses control of everything.

"Stop, stop!" he screams in pain.

"It cannot be stopped" replies Harbinger.

Shepard's body was no longer his own, Harbinger had full control over everything.

"Why am I still alive?"

"To witness the spoils of your labour" says the monotone voice of harbinger.

"What labour?"

"Organics are irrefutably blind to the obvious."

Shepard's body stands up and the purple lights between the condensed cables disappear as a new layer of human skin grows over them. Harbinger looks at his new body and flexes its fingers getting use to its ligaments and tendons.

"Let me guess, you planned this to?" echoes Shepard's voice in harbinger's head.

"It is necessary."

Harbinger turns his head to the Catalyst.

"Begin the cycle."

"Yes Harbinger."

The Catalysts holo form is tainted red and the dark energy beam shooting up through the centre of the super structure is tainted red by Harbingers presence. He walks down to the edge of the round chasm from which the beam originates and 2 nodes rise up from the ground on either side of him.

"We are ready" says the Catalyst.

Harbinger places his hands on the nodes and dark energy from the beam begins to flow through him like a conduit.

"Let the cycle begin."

"Concentrate fire on the Reapers, the Geth aren't our main priority" orders Hackett.

"Admiral, the mass relay just activated."

On the edge of the system masses of cuttlefish like machines known as 'Reapers' thunder out of the Sol Mass Relay with a resounding deep horn like sound. Admiral Hackett looks on his ships sensor screen to see the hundreds of machines coming towards them.

"Dear god."

Whole fleets are wiped out in minute's right around the galaxy. The Asari, Salarian, Turian and council fleets are all destroyed by the much larger and much more formidable machines than the ones they had been fighting.

"Why isn't the Crucible firing!" cries Hackett.

"The reapers, there's more?" wonders Shepard.

The dark energy flows through him like a river. The dark energy uses him to run through the crucible and prepare to discharge the energy.

"Your understanding of us is minimal at best."

"What are you going to do?"

"We will wipe the galaxy clean of your plague and allow the young ones to live out their lives to suffer the same fate as you."

"That's barbaric!"

"It is necessary."

The energy rips him apart, absorbing his very being and uploading him into the Reaper consciousness.

Shepard tries to regain control of his body and let go of the nodes to save himself but Harbinger is too strong. The energy strips Shepard's body away as he is uploaded.

"Stop…please."

The whispers of ancient civilisations crawl through his mind and it becomes too much for his consciousness to handle.

"Your thoughts and your memories will live on in us" echoes harbinger's voice through the whirring of the energy.

Shepard's very being brakes and collapses into a bright white light, accompanied by a high pitch ringing in his hearing.

The ringing infects him and the light burns his eyes like the morning after shore leave. A muffled voice breaks into the sound.

"Shepard…Shepard," its voice deep like a voice sounds when it's slowed down, "Shepard, wake up."

Suddenly the feeling of his extremities returns and his lungs feel rusted, slow to start. His brain recognises the voice…it's Miranda.

"Shepard, wake up the stations under attack!"

The glare slowly subsides and a metallic roof comes into view. He sits up slowly as his lungs begin to work normally and his bones reacquaint themselves with movement. A familiar lab room comes into view and his mind floods with questions and impossibilities.

"_What?"_


End file.
